by Tom Poland
Back at camp, Tyler brought her floral skills to bear on our seashell collection, arranging them in ways that pleased the eyes. She seemed to have talent for sure, and I enjoyed watching her try combination after combination, until she had the composition she sought. Meanwhile I could not avoid dwelling on Rikard. I could literally see the fabled Mullet Man walk into camp. Without his help, I knew we were dead in the water. And then, one of those rare and eerie déjà vu type occurrences unfolded.
The mind truly works in strange ways. Thinking about what you want sometimes makes it happen. Late that afternoon, about the time traffic clogs up Atlanta’s arteries, Rikard did walk into camp as we were preparing the evening meal. He wanted to talk about the magazine article. After much discussion about the magazine’s readers, he agreed to teach the “sissies of the world” what black magic and survival are all about.
I was eager to check out this white man/black man who killed people with magic and commanded porpoises, this survivalist who wore a sand dollar necklace on a string of rawhide and seemed straight out of a screenplay.
He spotted a bottle of Southern Comfort and without asking, turned it up. He looked around camp and walked over to the rain collector and tapped it.
“Not much rain, huh?”
“Some, but not enough” I said. “She likes to shower a lot.”
Rikard came back to the bottle and poured the amber liquid into a cup, downing it.
“Of course, she does,” he said, wiping his mouth with his hand, “cleanliness and Godliness—that’s part of the city life. It’s okay to smell natural. You folks just done forgot how the body ought to smell. That’s all. You know, there ain’t nothing like the natural world,” he said. “I admire people who live naturally. Most people can’t. Especially white people like you.”
“White folks can live naturally,” I said. “We live in a tent.”
“Not natural like. You have a shower and all that crap. I lived in a tee pee for three years but living on the ground gives you worms and parasites. After that, I moved into a house.”
“That sounds conventional enough,” I said.
“Without electricity! No TV, no oven, no radio. Cooking in a fireplace over hot coals. No electric razors, no hot water. Just rough, cold shaving.”
That explains the beard, I thought. “What do you do to make a living?”
“I have two livings, one honest, one dishonest. I make my honest living doing a little fishing, a little crabbing, taking women on shelling expeditions, and weaving cast nets. Restaurants hang them on walls for a touch of Lowcountry atmosphere. I used to make ’em for fishermen but I can’t sell nets to fishermen any more. The Japs make ’em cheaper than I can.”
“How about your dishonest living?”
“That’s off limits. I won’t discuss that with white folks.”
I poured him another cup of Southern Comfort. He downed it right away. Cameron was right. Rikard claimed to be black all right. Maybe so. Mixed gene pools could produce unexpected results, but he looked white. Very white. I couldn’t let it go without some explanation.
“I’m curious about something but don’t get pissed. Tell me about your bloodline. You say you’re black but you look white. Explain that.”
Rikard leaned back against the driftwood tree we used as a bench. He let out a long sigh.
“Okay, I’ll tell you how that works. My heritage is part black, part Indian, part white. My great-great grandmother was black and my granddad was part white, part Cherokee. Then I lived seventeen years with a black man named Delano, an old fellow who taught me the black ways. He showed me the natural ways, root medicine, island crafts, and how to relate to animals.
“Delano taught me how to weave a cast net. Delano learned from his father, who learned from his father, who learned from his father, Delano’s great-granddaddy. And his great-granddaddy learned by watching spiders spin their orb shaped webs. So, I’m a mixture of this and that—as we all are—but I’m black by choice.”
“So Delano taught you voodoo.”
“That’s right. He was good too.”
“I heard you killed a developer with black magic. True?” I asked.
“Fuck. I knew that would come up. Now you listen good. First of all, there’s little difference between realtors and developers. Both are shitty parasites. There is no lower scum than an island developer but realtors come real close. Yes, I put a hex on one. He bought a small island near here and made it off limits to me.”
“Why you?”
“Because I made a little money taking women there shelling. It’s the best place around for shells, good currents.”
“What did you do?”
“I’m a rational man. I tried to reason with him. I told him we’d only take so much as shells go, you have to leave some for nature’s use, you know. The arrogant ass said the island was his and so were any shells that drifted up. You don’t need to know the particulars but when I was done he died. Cancer.”
“You gave him cancer.”
“That’s right. I told him he’d die from stomach cancer in six months.”
“How long did it take?”
“Five months. His wife cried and begged me to take off the hex. He opened the island up to me again but it was too late.”
“So he died of stomach cancer?”
“Stom-ach can-cer,” he said, accentuating the deadly words.
“How do you feel about that?”
“Fine. Like I said there is no lower riffraff than an island developer. They rape Mother Nature. They think they can plant palmettos wherever they feel. Shit, go to any resort island and look at the damn palmettos. They look like shit, as out of place as I’d be at a black tie dinner. Resort palmettos don’t grow naturally. Developers put them there. They’re trying to make everything look tropical and pretty so they can sell it.”
“They call it marketing.”
“I call it the white man’s greed,” he said. “The white man’s greed has screwed up the world. Fucking destruction is inevitable because the white man has forsaken the natural ways. White folks akilling themselves ’cause they’ve abandoned real life’s rhythms and that all important factor—timing.”
“Timing is everything all right,” I said. “Your timing saved me from drowning in the marsh.”
“There you go. Hell, I’m a super fisherman. No secret to it. It’s timing. Idiots from the mainland go out when they’re not supposed to. It’s t-i-m-i-n-g,” He said drawing out the word. “You got to blend with nature to be as one with it. It’s blending and it’s timing.”
“People say you blend into the island like a wild animal. They say you just disappear when you want to.”
“That’s a fact. No one can find me. Now someone might get lucky and stumble onto me,” he said locking eyes with me. “Nothing, and I mean nothing, gets by me. I know this island backwards and forwards. I can disappear at will and I get information from sources people never think about.”
Rikard drank straight from the bottle and continued. “Someone, and it’s me, has to protect sanctuaries like Sapelo. The developer’s lust for money has killed the charm, lifestyle, and traditions of all the old islands,” said Rikard, “but I’ll be damned if they’ll get this one.”
He paused and gazed off into the distance far beyond the sea.
“To hell with developers’ palmettos. There’s an old oak deep in this island that’s seen everything. Big swooping limbs covered in Spanish moss, a canopy that blocks out the sun. It’s the granddaddy of Lowcountry trees. It knows everything, like an old man.”
“Do you go into the city much?” I asked.
“Hell no. I go when I have to, take care of business, and leave. City people are crazy.”
“You’re right,” I said. “The city makes them crazy.”
“There’s no way in Hell city people can know what’s going on. Look at their faces when they’re stuck in traffic. They look like people from another planet. They have a damn phone stuck in the
ir ear, talking about nothing, cigarettes smoking away. The women have so much make up on, it’s like they’re wearing a mask. The men have earrings and funny little beards, and tattoos too. They look like contestants in an ugly contest. Most are pussies and the Army would kill ’em in two days. As for women, Charleston has a few natural good-looking women, but not many.”
Rikard’s talk of Charleston brought Tyler over.
“You go to Charleston a lot?” she asked.
“Just when I need supplies,” he said.
“You ever meet a girl there named Lorie?”
“I meet lots of women there. Women like me ’cause I’m different. What’s your daughter look like?”
“I showed you a flyer, remember?”
“No, I don’t remember.”
“She’s blonde with blue eyes, a bit tall, five feet nine maybe, and I’m guessing she has a nice frame.”
“You’re guessing? Don’t you know?”
“I told you I haven’t seen her in seven years, so yes I’m guessing.”
“A nice frame. You make her sound like a door. Just say she’s built, cause if she is, maybe I know her real good,” he said, grinning.
“You think you’re funny, don’t you,” she said, brushing away his remark.
“Let’s see. You haven’t seen her in seven years. How old’s that make her?” Rikard asked.
“Twenty-three.”
“You got a girl who’s grown into a woman. Seven years is a lot of change,” said Rikard, “and if she likes to hang out in bars, smoke, and drink, she’ll break bad in a hurry.”
“Oh, she’s not that type.”
“You don’t know crap about who she is today. You wouldn’t even recognize her,” said Rikard who plainly was agitated.
“I don’t think she’d hang out in bars,” Tyler said, looking seaward then restoring her stare at Rikard. “And I know she’d never smoke.”
Rikard reached for the Southern Comfort, and took a deep swig.
“You don’t know that,” he said, wiping his mouth, “but I hope not, not cigarettes anyway. Just pray she ain’t in the city. The city life isn’t much of a life nor are people there worth a damn. Tell me, do you think your daughter likes to dance?”
“I suppose. Most girls do. What difference does that make?”
“Maybe none, maybe a lot. One night, for the Hell of it, I stepped into a bar off East Bay. A damn band was playing something they called music. These punks had tattoos, shaved heads, earrings, and goatees. Like they wanted to look as ugly as Hell and they sure as hell succeeded. Called themselves ‘The Trouser Moccasins.’ Now don’t you know their mamas would be proud to know they raised some trou-ser moc-ca-sins,” he said drawing out the syllables.
“Girls gyrated in front of the band and everyone of ’em puffed a damn cigarette. Now this one girl danced by herself on a speaker all night long holding an orange Smiley Face bowl with a blue straw. I’d seen her there once before on that speaker, dancin’ and drinkin’, drinkin’ and dancin,’ just stopping to refuel.”
“Did you talk to her?” asked Tyler moving into Rikard’s space. He not only stood his ground, he moved close up near her face.
“You could say I talked to her. I went over for a closer look and she tossed the shit in the Smiley Face bowl on me. I told her to go to Hell.”
“What’d she do?”
“What did she do?” Rikard turned the bottle up, then leaned hard against the kitchen tree, rattling the pans hanging from a bare limb. “You mean what did I do. Shit, I left. The noise and smoke was bad enough without some bitch throwing a drink on me. That’s why I don’t live on the mainland. The people there—especially in the cities—are just crazy and craziness is contagious. I don’t need no craziness and I don’t need no city life. Besides, people like me, we’re always running from something, and the city is a trap, set to spring on the poor soul who don’t belong there. I go in, take care of business, and I leave. One day I’m there; the next I’m gone. I stay a step or two ahead of trouble and when I get back here, I disappear.”
Tyler pursued Rikard over to the tree.
“The dancing girl, the blonde who threw …”
“What are you running from Rikard?” I asked, interrupting Tyler.
“People like you and pretty girl there,” he said, nodding at Tyler who stood poised with a mouthful of questions. “And now you’re chasing me down on my own island. What’s chasing you?” Rikard asked, drawing on the bottle.
“Me? Bad memories, and, like you, the city.”
“And you, pretty girl, what are you running from?” asked Rikard.
“You know my name. I’m running toward a new life. I’m looking for my daughter and I’ll find her—with or without your high-and-mighty help. If you know so damned much about this wild, voodoo island, you could help me if you wanted to. And as far as killing people with voodoo, I’ll believe it when I see it. I can tell you though, killing a man is nothing. I shot a man in the neck and I shot off his … Well, it doesn’t matter. I served my time. Just don’t talk to me about killing unless you can back it up.”
She walked away and began to break out food for the night. Rikard leaned back against the toppled tree and put his arms around two limbs, clearly stung. It was a good time, I thought, to walk the beach and talk mano a mano.
“Give me the bottle,” I said to Rikard. “Let’s take a walk.”
“Sure. Let’s drink,” Rikard said, handing me the bottle.
I walked over to Tyler and handed her the bottle.
“Here, take a sip and relax. We’ll be back in a bit,” I said. “Give me a chance to talk to him alone.”
“That arrogant ass won’t tell you a damn thing. He talks about himself only and then in riddles. Where are you going?”
“We’re going to take a walk and talk some. We won’t be long.”
“I’m going too,” she said. “I’m not done with him.”
“No, stay here. We need to talk alone. We’ll be back and then he can eat with us … if he wants. Just stay here and make dinner.”
“Make it yourself. I’m not your damn maid.”
“Back off, will you? I’ll help you when I get back. Just give me a chance to talk one-on-one with him and do me a favor. Don’t wander off. And don’t let the dog wander off either. He’s your pet. Remember?”
Tyler tipped the bottle up and a slug of liquor gushed into her. I went into my tent and got the article I’d written on Mitchell, folded it, and slipped it inside my shirt. I went over to Tyler and took back the bottle.
A sullen Tyler watched Rikard and me walk through the pass in the dunes. We turned south and headed to where Jackson’s boat had sunk.
“You have to overlook her a bit. She’s determined as hell to find her daughter. She hasn’t seen her in a long time, and she feels you’re holding out on her.”
“Seven years, right. Maybe if she was nicer, she’d get more out of me. And another thing … what’s all this talk of killing? Who’d she kill?”
“Her husband, a North Carolina game warden. She killed him seven years ago because he molested her daughter. She served time too. That’s no lie.”
“She killed her husband. You don’t say,” he said his eyes afire.
“She isn’t lying when she says she shot him in the dick. She did. Shot him in the throat too. She’s one determined woman on a mission. My take is she needs to see her daughter just as much or more than she wants to see her.”
“Well, all this talk of killing’s whetting my appetite. Maybe it’s time for a hex. I know a game warden, excuse me—a con-ser-va-tion officer—I wouldn’t mind killing … So, she thinks her daughter is here,” said Rikard, reaching for the bottle.
“That’s right and if she is, she knows you know where she is.”
The question went into the salt air and hung there but no answer came.
Rikard walked ahead to where the tide had washed up debris from Jackson’s sunken Whaler. A wreckage of bottles, beer ca
ns, and burnt lifejackets littered the beach.
“That’s what’s left of Jackson’s Boston Whaler.”
“Jackson, well hell yes, I know that.”
“Jackson came to see us yesterday. He was supposed to come today to pick up Tyler and take her back to the mainland. Just before he crossed the surf line his engine quit. He went back to look at it with a cigarette in his mouth and the boat exploded. He’s out there on the bottom somewhere.”
“Jackson, that shit. Good riddance. The island is better off without Jackson. Let the crabs eat him; charred human flesh ought to suit ’em. Let ‘em eat that bastard’s face of a burnt-out alcoholic. He didn’t give a damn about natural ways. He was one destructive son-of-a bitch.”
“Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” I asked.
“He was a worthless drunk who showed island creatures no reverence. When he was bringing you and your lady friend here, he tried to hit my porpoises that intercepted you.”
“How did you know that?”
“They told me. I knew the second you stepped ashore you were here.”
“Did you leave the amulet on Tyler’s tent?”
“No. I didn’t leave it.”
“Did you send someone over with it?”
“No, I didn’t send no person.”
“Then who left it and how did they do it without leaving footprints?”
“That sounds a whole lot like black magic, don’t it,” he said. “Maybe you can conjure up an answer.”
“Look Rikard, Mullet Man, or whatever in the hell name you go by, I need your help in the worst way. I want you to do me a big favor. I’ll pay you if necessary—”
“—to do what?”
“Save my daughter’s life.”
“Save your daughter’s life?”
“That’s right. She’s been in a coma for five years and modern medicine can’t do anything to help her. Wires and tubes hooked to machines keep her alive. Her mom was killed in a wreck and she suffered a serious head injury.”
A far away look possessed Rikard’s eyes and he fell silent. Then with a heavy sigh he at last spoke. “So just what in hell do you want me to do?”